Limited Government Is

Tag Archives: Operation Fast and Furious

(Washington DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a records request with the California Legislature Joint Rules Committee seeking to examine legislative records regarding the state’s employment of former Obama U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.:

All contracts between the California Legislature and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. or Covington and Burling.

All communications between the California Legislature and former U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. or Covington and Burling about the Legislature’s retention of Holder and/or Covington and Burling.

On January 4, 2017, California legislative leaders announced that they have hired Holder to assist them in anticipated federal challenges to several state policies such as climate change and immigration.

In a statement, Kevin de Leon, California Senate President Pro Tempore said, “With the upcoming change in administrations, we expect that there will be extraordinary challenges for California in the uncertain times ahead.” The California Attorney General, who represents the State’s interest in court, already has a budget of $190 million.

When a jury gathers next week for the trial of two men charged with the murder of a U.S. federal agent, it will not hear any details of how two guns found at the murder scene were part of a U.S. government-sanctioned weapon program, a federal judge has ruled.

Friday morning, U.S. District Court Judge David Bury agreed with U.S. prosecutors to keep the details of Operation Fast and Furious out of the upcoming trial for the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Terry was killed in a firefight with a crew of armed Mexican men who were scouting the desert in search of drug smugglers to rob. Two AK-47 variants were found at the crime scene. Those rifles were purchased in a gun-tracking operation overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Operation Fast and Furious. ATF officials had hoped weapons purchased at a Glendale gun store would eventually turn up in the hands of high-level Mexican drug traffickers. Instead, ATF lost track of more than 1,400 guns. The two found at Terry’s death were part of the operation, congressional investigators later found.

Ivan Soto Barraza and Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza were apprehended in Mexico, two years later.

The U.S. asked the judge this summer to keep the details of Fast and Furious out of the murder trial, stating it was irrelevant.

Bury agreed. “I agree with one exception. I can’t find any relevance expect if the government should open the door,” he said.

If the government brings up the origins of the guns found, Bury ruled that defendants can then bring up Fast and Furious.

Bury ordered the defendants “not to refer to … or elicit any testimony regarding Operation Fast and Furious. Understood?”

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained graphic crime scene photos taken at the site of a 2013 gang-style assault on a Phoenix, AZ, apartment building, including a close-up photo revealing the serial number of the AK-47 rifle used by the assailants. As a result of Judicial Watch’s October 2, 2014, public records lawsuit, the weapon has been already traced to the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning program. The photos were also produced by the Phoenix Police Department in response to this lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. City of Phoenix (No. CV2014- 012018)). Full batch of photos can be viewed here.

According to press reports at the time of the assault, police investigating the shooting that left two wounded found an AK-47 assault rifle in the front passenger area of a vehicle that had crashed into a fence surrounding the apartment complex. Inside sources informed Judicial Watch at the time of the crime scene investigation that the AK-47 used in the assault had been provided to the assailants as part of the Obama-Holder Fast and Furious program. On October 16, 2014, Judicial Watch announced that, based upon information uncovered through its October 2 public records lawsuit, the U.S. Congress had confirmed that the rifle was tied to the Fast and Furious operation. Attorney General Eric Holder has already admitted that guns from the Fast and Furious scandal are expected to be used in criminal activity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for years to come.

After years of legal battles between the House Oversight Committee and Attorney General Eric Holder, 64,280 redacted Operation Fast and Furious documents held under President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege since 2012, have been turned over by the Department of Justice after an order from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson. The Justice Department was originally ordered to turn over a list of documents, better known as a Vaughn Index, with explanations as to why documents fall under executive privilege claims by November 1.

In just a matter of days, the Justice Department will finally turn over critical information contained in withheld documents relating to the scandalous Operation Fast and Furious, an ATF gun-walking sting that allowed numerous firearms to be illegally transferred to Mexican drug cartels.

The guns have been linked to hundreds of murders in Mexico, along with the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

The release of these documents has taken on a new urgency, as evidence has recently turned up proving that guns involved in Fast and Furious are still be used to commit crimes.

“I was singled out for punishment even though all my sales to these people were reported as required by law, and the buyers were legally able to buy the firearms,” Garland said. “The ex-police chief, Angelo Vega, the ex-mayor, Eddie Espinoza, and Blas Gutierrez, the village trustee, and everyone else who bought from me, need to be interviewed. They all asked, on the record, ‘Why is Ian here, he had no conspiracy with us? We only used his store, as well as others, to buy from.’ The connection between Arizona’s Fast and Furious is clear, crystal clear, and this is in my pre-sentencing report.”

“I am Australian born, a U.S. citizen, and damn proud of it,” Garland said. “I am fighting because the government’s lawyers held back information that could have exonerated me. Plus, I got sentenced under the wrong guidelines, which gave me a harsher penalty than even the charges warranted.”

According to the El Paso Times, Garland is planning on sharing the information he has regarding the ties of Fast and Furious to El Paso and Nuarez with Mexican authorities.

While much of the news of late on Freedom Outpost has centered on the Bundy Ranch Siege, numerous references have been made to the similarities of Ruby Ridge and Waco. Yet, the biggest missing agency in the Bundy saga is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). They are, however, at the center of the Fast and Furious scandal. This illegal federal agency also has blood on its hands. It proceeded as if everything was OK, watched the guns walk across the border, and when the whistle was blown on the operation, sought to discredit the whistleblowers, even threatening them.

Remember the mountain of lies we have heard from the Obama administration, specifically Attorney General Eric Holder, regarding Operation Fast and Furious? The claim was that they were just doing as the Bush administration in Operation Wide Receiver. In both accounts, I personally don’t agree with the method, but at least to the Bush administration’s credit they did actually attempt to track the weapons. The Obama administration made no such effort. In fact, it has been claimed by a high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative that the Obama administration was knowingly arming the Sinaloa Cartel against rival cartels with these weapons. As a result, the weapons have only been able to be recovered at murder scenes for the most part. Court documents have provided a little more detail on the conspiracy between the cartels and the Columbus, New Mexico conspirators in Operation Fast and Furious.